This invention relates to a track aligner for use in railroad maintenance and particulary to the use of contoured shoes on such an aligner which are capable of vibrating the ballast upon which they are positioned outside the track rails during an aligning operation.
It is presently known to use auxiliary shoulder compacters during a railroad track aligning or tamping operation in order to prevent the vibrated ballast beneath the track from flowing to the outside portion of the rails which would thereby reduce the support given to the ties by the ballast. During a tamping operation between the ties, ballast tends to flow to the outside portion of the track and the auxiliary shoulder tamper, by counteracting this outward pressure, provides restraint to the ballast flow. The known auxiliary tamper may have its geometry varied so as to have the capability of being positioned in various places on the shoulder and it may also have the ability, in some machines, to provide lateral force to the tie thereby moving it in a horizontal direction for track alignment purposes.
Although the auxiliary tamper used in prior machines for tamping purposes may provide vibration to the ballast, this vibration does little to aid an aligning operation. Similarly, the auxiliary tamper used on aligning operations, which may be given a position adjacent a tie to exert lateral force thereon, will be required to provide a large force since the ballast opposing the tie end during its lateral movement is not in a fluidized state.